As summers grow hotter, the one thing that self-appointed experts seem absolutely agreed upon is the need for a blast of chemicals to cover up the merest possibility of anything resembling the smell of a warm body. One Mariah G. Humbert, an American etiquette dictator, was asked by the Guardian about this and insisted: ‘Deodorant is absolutely necessary. The way you care for yourself and your hygiene is a form of self-respect, but also respect for the people you work with. It’s the same socially.’ Of course you should use deodorant! It’s vital to hygiene! It’s like wiping your bum!
Miss Humbert’s other point, that the lavish application of deodorant shows respect for people around you, could only have been made by someone who has never eaten breakfast in the budget Hilton hotel in Bath, or similar. The mass assembly of recently risen middle management on a training course and coach parties of ageing Americans produces a fug of recently applied aluminium, and renders the idea of eating any food in this chemical miasma nauseating. A morning trip on the District Line, pressed up against estate agents intensely sprayed, like crops, with anti-pong prophylactic, infallibly induces a vile headache. The afternoon ride home is much less obnoxious, when the deodorant and the ‘respect’ and ‘hygiene’ have faded and there is nothing worse to deal with than a few clean bodies.
